An Amazon Fire TV Stick is only as good as the apps installed on it, and while it comes preloaded with a handful of the big names, there’s a much wider library available through the Amazon Appstore that can genuinely transform what your Firestick is capable of. Here’s a rundown of the best Firestick apps worth adding, along with how to actually install them.
For streaming, the essentials most people install first include Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video, all of which run natively and smoothly on Fire TV hardware since Amazon designed the platform with its own service in mind. Beyond these major players, apps like ITVX, All 4, and BBC iPlayer are essential for UK users wanting access to free catch-up television and live channels directly through the Firestick without needing a separate set-top box.
For live sport specifically, apps like DAZN and TNT Sports bring dedicated football, boxing, and general sports coverage directly to your Firestick, while Amazon’s own Prime Video app has increasingly become a home for exclusive live sport coverage in the UK, including Premier League football fixtures.
Kodi remains one of the most talked-about Firestick apps, functioning as a highly customisable media centre that can organise and play your own personal media library alongside various add-ons. It’s important to note that Kodi itself is entirely legal open-source software; any legal issues associated with it come specifically from third-party add-ons that provide access to unlicensed content, which we don’t recommend installing.
To install any app not preloaded on your Firestick, go to the Home screen, select the Find menu, then Search, and type the name of the app you’re after. Select it from the results and click Get or Download. Alternatively, apps can be installed directly through the Amazon Appstore icon on your Firestick’s home screen, which functions much like the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, letting you browse categories and search directly.
For apps not available in the official Amazon Appstore, sideloading through an app like Downloader is possible, though this comes with genuine security risks if you’re downloading APK files from unofficial or untrustworthy sources. If you do choose to sideload apps, stick to well-known, reputable APK sources and keep Amazon’s built-in security settings enabled to catch obviously malicious files.
Once you’ve built up your own collection of Firestick apps, organising them well makes a real difference to daily use. From the home screen, press and hold the Fire TV remote’s selection button on any app icon to move it, allowing you to arrange your most-used apps at the front of your app row rather than digging through a long alphabetical list every time you want to watch something. A well-curated Firestick, with your genuinely used streaming, sport, and catch-up apps arranged front and centre, turns a fairly basic device into a genuinely comprehensive home entertainment hub.
It’s also worth managing storage carefully on lower-capacity Firestick models, since installing a large number of apps, particularly ones with sizeable local caches like Kodi, can fill up available storage faster than expected. Go to Settings, then My Fire TV, then Storage, to check available space and identify which apps are taking up the most room if your device starts running sluggishly.
For households with multiple people using the same Firestick, setting up individual Amazon profiles is worth doing, since each profile can maintain its own separate watch history, recommendations, and even its own arrangement of installed apps, which keeps things far more organised than everyone sharing a single account and constantly seeing each other’s viewing suggestions.
Finally, restarting your Firestick periodically, via Settings, My Fire TV, then Restart, helps keep installed apps running smoothly, clearing minor glitches that can build up after weeks of continuous use without a reboot.